Today's Stichomancy for Karl Rove

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Shadow Line by Joseph Conrad:

very good. The constant toil of trimming yards they faced willingly. But all spring was out of their limbs, and as I looked at them from the poop I could not keep from my mind the dreadful im- pression that they were moving in poisoned air.

Down below, in his cabin, Mr. Burns had ad- vanced so far as not only to be able to sit up, but even to draw up his legs. Clasping them with bony arms, like an animated skeleton, he emitted deep, impatient sighs.

"The great thing to do, sir," he would tell me on

The Shadow Line

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Mad King by Edgar Rice Burroughs:

spised.

It was an ultimatum from his government--an ultimatum couched in terms from which all diplomatic suavity had been stripped. If Barney Custer, of Beatrice, could have read it he would have smiled, for in plain American it might have been described as announcing to Leopold precisely "where he got off." But Barney did not have the opportunity to read it, since that ultimatum was never delivered.

Barney took the wind all out of it by his first words. "Your excellency may wonder why it is that we have summoned you at such an early hour," he said.

The Mad King

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Glasses by Henry James:

him a hint that he might offer Mrs. Meldrum his hand. He returned me a heavy head-shake, and I judged that marriage would henceforth strike him very much as the traffic of the street may strike some poor incurable at the window of an hospital. Circumstances arising at this time led to my making an absence from England, and circumstances already existing offered him a firm basis for similar action. He had after all the usual resource of a Briton--he could take to his boats, always drawn up in our background. He started on a journey round the globe, and I was left with nothing but my inference as to what might have happened. Later observation however only confirmed my belief that if at any time during the

The fourth excerpt represents the element of Earth. It speaks of physical influences and the impact of the unseen on the visible world, and is drawn from A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court by Mark Twain:

hands everywhere, and the king was assailed with a storm of supplications that I might be bought off at any price, and the calamity stayed. The king was eager to comply. He said:

"Name any terms, reverend sir, even to the halving of my kingdom; but banish this calamity, spare the sun!"

My fortune was made. I would have taken him up in a minute, but I couldn't stop an eclipse; the thing was out of the question. So I asked time to consider. The king said:

A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court